The Mentally Ill in America

I lived and worked in Sandy Hook for five years.  It was a wonderful time in my life, and I tossed and turned all night long grieving for this lovely little community and my former friends. 

I am no expert on mental illness.  I know very little about it.  I know many mental institutions were and probably still are hell holes.

I have nothing but the deepest sympathy for people who through no fault of their own have brains that don't work properly.  But that fact is reality, and I believe it's time we accept it and care for the dangerously mentally ill with forced incarceration

There is talk about new gun control laws, but I don't think law abiding people are the problem.  Adam Lanza used his mothers licensed and legally owned weapons to kill her and to attack the elementary school.  It was against the law, but he walked right through those laws. 

What no one has pointed out yet, is that just a mile or two from Sandy Hook is the old retired/abandoned Fairfield Hills State Hospital.

It was finally closed in 1995 after the people of Connecticut had downsized it time and time again.  Eventually they decided it was a service the state could not afford.  Make no mistake about it.  Fairfield Hills was often a nightmare.  It is fair to say it could be a dirty little secret where we threw away the mentally ill people we didn't want.

But I would like to know how many of these mass shootings have come after we closed the places we once used the good sense God gave us to lock away dangerously mentally ill people?

I don't advocate strait jackets and padded rooms and hospitals portrayed in "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest".  But I think we need to accept the fact some peoples are to dangerous to be part of society. I think we must accept the fact civil rights cannot no longer use used as an argument to allow these time bombs to walk among us.

Lawyers for Adam Lanza will argue he didn't know any better,  but the rest of us do.

I advocate compassion for the dangerously mentally ill, and we must  provide a good clean safe place for them to live, but it must be away from society.

 I will hear from people who disgree with me with their entire heart and soul, but please keep it civil, and let's start a discussion.